How Your Representatives Voted

Here are the votes of California’s senators and local representatives on
major legislation in Congress last week. A “Y” means the member voted for
the measure; an “N” means the member voted against the measure; a “?” means
that a member did not vote, and a “P” means the member voted present.
Friday’s voting is not included.
. . .

KINGPINS (2)

The House on Thursday [April 14, 1994]
rejected by a 108-316 vote an amendment to the crime
bill (H.R. 4092) that would have deleted a provision that subjects
convicted “drug kingpins” to the death penalty. Supporters of the amendment
said the punishment would fall disproportionately on minorities, but
opponents argued that people who run drug rings are as bad as murderers. A
“no” vote favors retention of the death penalty for drug kingpins.

Votes: 2
CUNNINGHAM (R) N
. . .

____
Additional Information:
http://rs9.loc.gov/r103/r103d14ap4.html
The McCollum amendment that adds procedures for imposing the death penalty in
cases involving drug “kingpins” where
no death results (agreed to by a recorded vote of 340 ayes to 87 noes,
with 1 voting “present” Roll No. 108).

Alarming new statistics show drug use skyrocketing among teen-agers. Drugs
have invaded our classrooms, our homes and our communities. They have
destroyed promising young lives, torn families apart and crushed hope. We
can continue to go down this destructive path, or we can act now to save
our children’s future.

Illustrating the depth of this crisis are reports from the Department
of Health and Human Services that show overall drug use among 12-
to 17-year-olds has increased an appalling 78 percent from 1992 to
1995. Among 14- and 15-year-olds, marijuana use has jumped 200 percent. Use
of LSD and other hallucinogens has nearly tripled among young people
during the same time.

In 1994, emergency-room reports of cocaine-related episodes were at
their highest level ever. And emergency room reports for methamphetamine
(“meth” a powerful and deadly drug widely popular among teens in San
Diego and the western United States, are up a whopping 308 percent. These
are not mere statistics. Behind every number is a young person whose
life has taken a dangerous turn. We must take this crisis seriously. We
must strengthen America’s families by having a real war on drugs at our
borders, in our communities, schools and homes. We can win this war,
but only with a serious commitment from everyone — parents, teachers,
clergy, local police, entertainers, the media, Congress and the president
of the United States.

We cannot, however, win this war with the current cavalier attitude
toward illicit drug use. It has sent a powerful and dangerous message to
America’s children that drugs are OK. We don’t need parents or society
saying drugs are just a passing fancy that we all go through. We don’t
need the entertainment industry to falsely romanticize drugs in movies or
TV shows. And we don’t need President Clinton to maintain the attitude of
candidate Clinton, who told teens on MTV that he would inhale if he had
the chance to do it again. What we need from our policy leaders and law
enforcement is a real war on drugs. We must get tough on drug dealers,
fully fund the war on drugs, and stop drugs at the border. We must reverse
the Clinton record: 80 percent cuts in the office of National Drug Control
Policy staff, fewer drug-enforcement agents, reduced drug-interdiction
efforts, declining drug prosecutions, reduced mandatory-minimum sentences
for drug trafficking and “soft on crime” liberal judges.

Congress has already begun to revitalize the drug war by pumping $7.1
billion into anti-drug programs. We are going right to the source,
focusing our efforts on countries where drugs originate. And to help
halt the flow of drugs into America, our immigration-reform bill doubles
our Border Patrol over the next five years. We also passed a law that
stops activist federal judges from ordering the early release of violent
criminals and drug traffickers. Those who would peddle destruction on
our children must pay dearly.

To give states the resources and flexibility to crack down on juvenile
drug use and violent crime, I introduced the Juvenile Crime Prevention
Act. It establishes mandatory-minimum prison sentences for juveniles
who use firearms during drug-trafficking offenses.

And the bill gives states the tools they need to hold youth accountable
for their actions before they become serious, violent criminals. We
recognize that if we turn troubled young persons around, we give them
another chance at the American Dream.

Crucial to winning the war on drugs are education and community
campaigns. So on Thursday, my House Subcommittee on Early Childhood,
Youth and Families will team up with Government Reform Oversight to send
a strong message to Americans: Drugs kill. We will hear from health and
community experts on what can be done to reverse the drug crisis. And
we will also examine ways to marshal community leadership and resources
to start local anti-drug coalitions.

Finally, I believe we must revive in word and deed the simple phrase,
“Just Say No,” coined by Nancy Reagan in the 1980s. While cynical elites
once joked about its effectiveness, I believe it played a significant
role in reducing drug use.

Many successful community-based initiatives were modeled on this
campaign. It helped establish the mind-set among America’s teens that
zero tolerance for drugs was “cool,” an attitude that is in jeopardy
today. While Washington sets a standard and provides resources to fight
the drug war, no one can help our children better than those closest to
them — parents, teachers, local law enforcement and community leaders. We
cannot fail our children by dismissing drug use with a wink and a nod,
ignoring it, or slashing funds to fight it. We must meet the challenge
head-on. We must let our children know that drugs kill, and their use
will not be tolerated. Only then will be victorious.

Crime Watch

ESCONDIDO — The 26-year-old son of Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham,
R-Escondido, was arrested Saturday in Lawrence, Mass., on charges of
trafficking marijuana, the congressman’s local office said yesterday.

Todd R. Cunningham, a resident of Pacific Beach, is the son of Cunningham
and his first wife, who divorced in the early 1970s. He lived with his
father in Del Mar in the late 1980s and spent 11 months in a residential
center for treatment of drug problems, an aide said.

Cunningham supports stiff penalties for drug offenders and in 1994 voted to
make certain major felonies committed by drug kingpins a capital offense.
His son, who is free on bail, is being charged under state law.

“As a parent, this is the most anguishing thing that can happen to you,”
the congressman said in a prepared statement. “We love him. If the charges
are true, we are disappointed and must face his responsibilities.”

Randall Cunningham gets 2 1/2 years for smuggling marijuana

BOSTON — Randall Todd Cunningham was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison
yesterday for marijuana smuggling, after his father, the Republican
congressman from Escondido, made a tearful plea for leniency.

The term was half the mandated five years and was supported by the prosecutor.
In imposing sentence, Judge Reginald C. Lindsay noted that the 29-year-old
Cunningham had no prior convictions and had provided information that led to
the arrests of higher-ups in the smuggling operation.

It was the first time Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham had come to the court
in Massachusetts since his son and several others were charged with smuggling
400 pounds of marijuana from the San Diego area to Lawrence Airport on
Jan. 17, 1997.

In August of last year, the younger Cunningham pleaded guilty to possession of
marijuana with intent to distribute and conspiracy.

The congressman has supported the death penalty for drug kingpins and has
supported erecting a fence at the Mexican-American border to keep out
drug smugglers.

In a tear-choked voice, Cunningham wondered whether he had some responsibility
for his son’s having fallen into difficulty.
He said he had not spent much time with the boy when the child was growing up.

During those years, he said, he piloted 300 missions in the Vietnam War.
“I was shot down,” said Cunningham, a highly decorated Navy pilot.

He and his first wife adopted Randall Todd, but the couple later divorced.
The boy lived with his mother in St. Louis, Cunningham said, and spent one
month a year with him.

“This is . . .” Cunningham said, as his voice trailed off,
“This is difficult.” He began to cry.

“I’m sure you see people from broken homes here every day,” he told the judge.

He said his son is basically a good person who made a bad decision.

“He has a good heart. He works hard. He’s expressed to me he
wants to go back to school,” Cunningham said.
“He’s never been in trouble before.”

When he finished, the congressman put his hands on his son’s shoulders,
sat down and wiped away a tear.

Months before the sentencing, prosecutors had agreed to recommend a 14- to
18-month stay in boot camp and half-way house for the younger Cunningham,
who had
been a bartender in San Diego.

However, Cunningham tested positive three times for cocaine while out on bail,
said his San Diego lawyer, Joseph Milchen.

Cunningham was held in jail after the third incident, Aug. 26 [, 1998].

On that day, when federal probation officers in San Diego came to give
Cunningham a drug test, he tried to avoid them by jumping out a window onto
a restaurant roof, Milchen said. He broke his leg and still wears a cast.

Judge Lindsay said he would request that Cunningham serve his time at
Lompoc federal prison and ordered him to take part in a 500-day drug
program there.

Defense lawyer Milchen said Cunningham could cut his sentence by as much
as a year by completing the program.

Prosecutor Geoffrey H. Hobart said Cunningham began working for marijuana
smugglers to pay for his own drug habit.

In this case, Cunningham took a commercial flight on Jan. 17 from
San Diego to Boston. He then met a pilot and another man who had
flown the 400 pounds of marijuana from San Diego to Lawrence Airport,
about 25 miles north of Boston.

He helped the men unload the marijuana and put it in a van, which he drove
to a nearby motel in order to meet the buyers.

Prosecutor Hobart said Cunningham was paid little for his efforts
and was basically “a mule” for Los Angeles lawyer Jeffrey L. Dunavant, 31.
Dunavant has pleaded guilty to taking part in the conspiracy.

Hobart said Cunningham also picked up $100 to $150 for mailing
packages of marijuana for a friend,
Jonathan G. “Fitness Johnny” Mudrinich, 32, of San Diego.
The packages were mailed from San Diego to Worchester, about 50 miles west
of Boston.

Mudrinich has pleaded guilty to smuggling marijuana from San Diego to Boston.

Twenty-nine men — many from Southern California — have been
charted with taking part in the Dunavant ring,
the Mudrinich ring and a third ring.
Nearly all of them have pleaded guilty to marijuana smuggling.

The Drug Enforcement Administration suspects the rings
shipped tons of marijuana to the East Coast and Midwest.

When a father and politician become one

The bonds between parents and children may be unbreakable,
but they can be heartbreaking.
Mothers and fathers, a philosopher once declared,
are hostages to fortune.

In a Boston courtroom last week, Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham. apologized —
“This is difficult,” he told the judge — then dabbed at his tears.
This would have been difficult for anyone, yes,
but especially so for the Republican from Escondido.

Less than four months later — on Jan. 17, 1997 — drug-enforcement agents
mustered sufficient force to interdict 28-year-old Randall Todd Cunningham and
400 pounds of marijuana in a Boston suburb.

“He has a good heart,” Duke assured Judge Reginald C. Lindsay at Todd’s
sentencing last Tuesday.
“He works hard. He’s expressed to me he wants to go back to school.
He’s never been in trouble before.”

If it’s your son facing prison time,
no parent demands a merciless judge or a harsh sentence.

Not funny

When I called Cunningham’s office in Washington last week,
an aide hesitated to speak with me.

“Some people find this funny,” she said.

I don’t.
I find the gap between Cunningham’s political postures and personal
please to be less hypocritical than human.
I am sure that Rep. Cunningham will remain, as the aide pledged,
“tough on drugs.”
And I have no doubt that father Cunningham will always want to
preserve his son from harm.
From what I can tell, he has been a caring and compassionate father
to his adopted son, who is bound for federal prison and in more need of caring
and compassion than ever.

I am not laughing.

I cannot, because this case illustrates the sobering fact that the entire
illicit drug industry — from growers and smugglers to dealers and users —
is made up of people.
These are not the soulless straw figures who prove so irresistible in campaign
speeches.

But membership in the human race does not give pushers immunity from
prosecution.
Drugs are a scrourge, and those who traffic in these poisons should be
stopped and punished.

When these criminals are sentenced, though, it’s a rare courtroom that does
not witness fervent prayers for a judge’s leniency, a prosecutor’s mercy,
a jail term that somehow slips below the mandated minimum.

Please, your honor. He has a good heart.

Clear solutions

After his January 1997 arrest,
Todd made bail — until this August, when he was returned to a cell.
A random test had turned up cocaine in his system.
For the third straight time.

In Congress, Duke Cunningham has supported federal funding for drug treatment
and prevention programs.
“He’s not just a tough-on-drugs guy,” his aide said.
“He gets to the root of the problem.”

Still, Duke has often implied that this is a simple contest between good
and evil.
In speeches and votes, he has insisted that the solutions —
mandatory prison terms, tougher judges,
the death penalty for major drug dealers —
could not be clearer.

But the clearest solutions, he may have found in Boston last week,
always involve someone else’s kid.